


The Shepherd's Crook

by PazithiGallifreya



Series: Inquisitor Arvedui Adaar [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:06:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PazithiGallifreya/pseuds/PazithiGallifreya
Summary: He never asked for any of this. He never wanted any of this. But he'll be damned before he watches the innocent suffer and do nothing about it.





	1. Mountains So Grand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mckittericks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mckittericks/gifts).



> Arvedui Adaar is my second Inquisitor, and I never thought I'd end up as attached to him as I was to my first. Or how different he'd end up feeling. And, apparently, I'm incapable of playing these sorts of games without concocting elaborate tales far beyond what the games offer. I've written out a lot of details about Arvie and his feelings and thoughts during Inquisition & Trespasser, but I'd never bothered to do a proper story for him. So i've decided to fix that for myself and the approximately two other people who might be interested in this story.
> 
> I plan to add more chapters to this now and then, as inspiration strikes. Will probably be Inqusitor/Cassandra Pentaghast eventually, because that's how I went in the game and hey, there's nothing like two disappointed idealists being disappointed together. I will change the tags if/when get that far.

“Elfroot... embrium... blood lotus... black lotus... hm. Black lotus...”

A long, thin finger moved over the labels on the shelf, taking in the contents of each jar or box. She was always running out of something, it seemed. Her own garden supplied the common herbs, but there were some that required more particular conditions to grow properly. Black lotus, for example. She could gather all the spindleweed she could carry along the banks of the river, where it grew as an irrepressible weed. Blood lotus was common enough in the slower parts of the river and along the smaller creeks and ponds uphill.

A peculiarly mild winter had kept the valley's flocks especially fat this year, and lambs arrived a bit larger than normal as a result. It had been a tough lambing season and her supply of black lotus, necessary for a concoction she gave the ewes to stem bleeding, was nearly exhausted.

Ivorwen sighed and walked to the door, pulling a satchel from a hook nearby and picking up a small knife from a table below it to tuck into her belt. She reached for a tall, unadorned staff perched against the wall. It was not a walking stick, but often served as one. It was a three hour hike down through the lower part of the valley, where her home stood, to a waterfall that marked an informal, natural boundary of sorts for the community she lived in. And three hours that didn't include climbing down the slippery, narrow natural stone path that led to the bottom of it. She knew if she didn't go now, though, something was bound to happen, and she'd be cursing herself for running out of the herb.

Stepping out into the morning air, she was greeted with an overcast sky and a bank of dark clouds just visible over the ridge of the northern peaks. “Oh, just _perfect._ ”

 

–

 

Arvedui sat on the kitchen table, kicking his feet as his mother stirred something in a cast-iron pot over the hearth that would be their lunch later. He wanted to go outside and play with his brothers and sisters, or help his father with chores, but he'd been told to stay inside today. It wasn't his fault. He didn't know how it happened. A fox burst out of the haystack and startled him, then the hay had simply burst into flames in front of him.

His brother tried to make him do it again, the next day, but no matter how hard he stared at another haystack, he couldn't get so much as a spark out of it. His mother had come out to call them in for supper and had asked what they'd been doing, standing around and staring at the sheep field like, well, a flock of sheep.

His parents had told him he wasn't in trouble, but he wasn't allowed to go outside again until his grandmother returned from the other side of the valley. A neighbor's cow had gone lame and stopped giving milk, and its calf was going hungry, and who knew when Grandmother would be back?

“You'll get to spend time a lot more time with Grandmother and Grandfather soon, Arvie. Won't that be nice?”

Arvedui loved his grandmother dearly. He loved his grandfather too, but Grandfather didn't do much but sit by the fire most of the time. Sometimes he'd talk, sometimes he even told stories, good stories about great ironclad ships with booming cannons, and about fighting _pirates_. But sometimes he'd say nothing at all for days. Where was the fun in that? He wanted to go outside.

He'd be old enough to go with some of the other boys up into the hills with the sheep soon, his father had promised. His fourteenth birthday was only a month away! He'd been promised his own pair of sheep to take into the hills to graze on the high pastures. They'd be up there for a month, with no parents to tell them to hurry up with the chores.

“You can still go, but you need to learn a few things first.”

“Like what? I promise I won't do that to the haystacks again!”

His father had shaken his head wearily. “You didn't mean to do it the first time. They'll teach you how to control it better. Then you can go.”

 

–

 

Ivorwen's normally loose tunic and breeches clung wetly to her skin and her dark hair dripped and swung in sodden clumps around her face. She swept the locks over and around her horns to hold them out of the way, and tried to ignore the water dripping down her neck.

Thoroughly annoyed, Ivorwen finally reached the bottom of the waterfall just as a brief but violent spring thunderstorm began to lighten up. The stiff gusts of wind dwindled to a gentle breeze and sunlight broke through clouds that were swiftly moving southward. She fervently hoped that her quarry had not all been washed downstream, putting her faith in the fact that it would take a few hours for the river to swell to its peak as the water trickled its way down from the mountain slopes through the thick trees.

She made her way down to the base of the waterfall and stepped into the water, struggling to keep her footing in the swift water and stony riverbed. Ducking behind the fall itself, a calmer pool spread out under the shelter of the overhanging stones.

“Ah, there you are.”

A thick blanket of circular lotus leaves carpeted the surface of the water up against the stone. They were a dark green, almost black, and peppered among them were her prize – the solid, velvet black blossoms. A few minutes' work and she filled the satchel, leaving only a few dozen behind to reseed themselves for next year.

The skies were clear when she stepped back out into the open air, the water roaring behind her. It was nearing mid morning and the sunlight was blinding where it reflected on the river. She might make it home in time for a quick lunch before checking in on her cousin's young son, who had been complaining of a cough. _Hayfever, probably. Salve of embrium seed oil and macerated elfroot stem, applied to the chest_. _Maybe a nudge of the Fade just_ so.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a tree a yard or two ahead of her suddenly burst into flames. Ivorwen raised an eyebrow at the sight and leaned one hip against her staff. She watched the flames flare for a moment, then dwindle, the recently soaked foliage giving it little to take hold of.

“Well, then.”

She thought about it for a moment. She'd set a few things on fire herself as a lass, when her gifts first manifested. Her father had taught her to control it, and how to call upon the fade to give her will a more deliberate shape. It doesn't do to let things fly out of control, after all. Someone might get hurt.

She hadn't been the one to do it, clearly. She took a deep breath of loam-scented air, shutting her eyes and reaching out with her soul. A spirit, perhaps, wandered into the waking world? They do so tend to panic.... _nothing_.

No, not nothing. Something. Not a spirit, however. Not even a panicked one, forming itself into a shape those outside the valley call demons. Another mage, then. Had Mallor come down again? Her young nephew had been forbidden to stray this far from home after a few recent accidents and misfires, but Ivorwen wouldn't be surprised. He'd not quite gotten the knack of his magic yet.

“Well, come out then, Mallor. I know you're in there. I'm headed home anyhow, you can have lunch with me, and then I'll take you back to my idiot brother's house. I won't even tell your parents where I found you if you help your poor aunt back up the path.”

Something crashed erratically through the undergrowth. What emerged was most certainly _not_ her nephew. _“By the four winds!”_

 

–

 

Arvedui shifted the heavy sack on his shoulder, the weight pulling uncomfortably at his neck. He'd never gotten the knack for that floating spell that his grandmother used. Everything either shot straight up into the sky like a arrow, or fell to the earth heedless of his efforts. It was a two day hike back over the ridge.

His younger brother had pestered him all week to go down to the road. A caravan of dwarven merchants passed by this time of year, and Arvegil had broken his last decent axe two months ago.

“Firi's due any day now, I can't leave!”

“And who is going to deliver the baby if I'm on the other side of the mountain?”

“Oh, I don't know, the same person who delivered you and me and both of our sisters? Grandmother isn't so helpless yet. She's been doing this a lot longer than you have, anyway.”

It was a stupid argument. Arvedui had delivered his own niece two summers ago and his brother and sister-in-law had no complaints then. _Gil could wait til after the baby comes and go himself, he's just too impatient._

As it happened, Arvedui had need of a few herbs himself, as deathroot grew nowhere in the valley, but nothing else worked as well to ward off the insects that would otherwise ravage their wheat fields, and the neighbors kept begging him for more. So off he went, leaving his own homestead in the care of his sister, traipsing over steep mountain paths that a goat would look twice at, in the hope that the traders kept to their annual schedule. Luckily, the dwarven caravan had passed right on schedule, ambling by not two days after Arvedui had set camp beside the road. A pity, then, that his brother would never see that axe.

 

–

 

 

Ivorwen was bone tired as she sat at her rough scrubbed-wood kitchen table. Her 'guest' sat mutely in front of her fireplace. The weather was warm, but he was as soaked through as she had been, not to mention half-starved and covered in peculiar wounds of no origin she could recognize. He'd been through _something_ , that much was obvious.

She'd nearly fainted at the sight of him when he'd come lurching out of the forest, grunting and blowing like an overworked ox, all sweat, blood and some kind of paint. She'd heard the stories, of course. Even had an old, musty book somewhere that had been passed down through her family that she thought might be propping up the uneven leg of her bed at the moment. _Qunari._ That's what he was.

Where had he come from? The valley was deep in the region known as the Free Marches, in a mountainous province that precious few had any interest in, having no great mineral wealth and no strategic use. Dalish clans and the occasional human or dwarven merchant would pass by on the other side of the eastern ridge, on a road that led from someplace she'd never been, to some place she'd never go. They were good for trading, often having useful bits of things they couldn't grow or gather where they were. Iron and steel, for example, and plants that would not grow in the valley's gardens or hollows. Her people traded wool from their flocks, hides and cheese from the cattle, feathers from the poultry. She was distantly aware that there was some city with some ruler who nominally had authority over them, but they'd never had any contact with them, nor did anyone care to.

They were certainly nowhere near the home of the Qunari, wherever that was.

The poor creature was recognizable enough to her. He had the same metallic sheen to his brass-colored skin, although he was taller than most of the Vashoth who lived in the valley. Someone had hacked his horns almost down to his skull and he was trapped in some sort of horrible collar, or whatever it was. And the chains. So many chains! And some cruel wretch had taken a needle and closed his mouth with a livid red thread.

 _Saarebas._ That's what they called them. Their mages. Her grandfather had talked about it, having heard tales from his own grandfather, who had been born in some distant land called Par Vollen. They did this to them, there. Bound them, mistreated them. She had never quite understood the point of it. What sort of magic could anyone do like this? How could you heal anyone without the proper use of your hands?

She'd gone to him as he'd stumbled to his knees in the wet earth beside the river, despite her fear of him. She'd wondered if he would strike out, set _her_ on fire, as he'd done to the tree. He was injured and in pain; she was a healer. She knew she had to do something for him, at least try, or she'd never forgive herself. So she did.

Ivorwen sipped the hot herbal infusion she'd made for herself. Another mug sat on the cowhide covering the floor beside her newly-acquired _Saarebas_ , a thin trail of steam rising from it to drift over him as he stared placidly into the dancing flames. She'd taken a pair of delicate sewing scissors and managed to remove the thread from his lips, dabbing elfroot tincture over the wounds left behind. He'd made no protest, and had let out a sigh that sounded like deep relief, but she had no idea what thoughts were going through his mind. The rest of his bonds... well, she'd have to speak to the blacksmith about them later. And perhaps some of the older healers – there was something odd about the metal that seemed designed to bind the shape of his magic as well as the freedom of his body. There had to be some means of removing the horrible things.

She shook her head in disbelief at her peculiar morning. She had crushed some of her newly harvested black lotus flowers on a stone beside the waterfall, mixing them with the river water into a thin paste, and he'd watched her like a frightened animal as she'd dabbed it across the lacerations covering him. He followed her home, like a lost lamb following its shepherd back to the sheepfold.

“Whatever am I going to do with you?”

He turned slightly and looked up at her for a moment, then shifted on the floor until he was laying stretched out before her hearth like a large cat and promptly fell asleep.

 

–

 

Arvedui saw the smoke first, thick plumes rising from below, staining the sunset to the west blood red. He was nearly to the apex of the valley, the green, sloping swath where the mountain streams began to converge, growing in volume and strength as the water wended down hill, ending in the waterfall which tumbled over a rocky cliff into a dense forest and, in the distance, a wide lake that could be seen just as the sun dipped below the western horizon.

He heard shouting in the distance and his heartbeat quickened. He'd heard the dwarven merchants muttering about “troubles” to the south, some sort of civil war that had broken out in the world beyond Arvedui's experience. He'd not given it another thought, such things were far away from his mountain home.

–

 

 _Saarebas_. He had not been called that in sixty years. That doesn't mean he'd forgotten. They'd pay for what they'd done to his home.

 

–

 

“Show me how, Grandfather! Just like Grandmother said, how do I set the tree on fire?”

“Leave it be, child. It's no good for this place.”

“But--”

“Leave. It. Be.”

You're too gentle for that kind of magic. Go tend to your father's flock, keep learning your grandmother's herbs, her healing magic. You're more like Ivorwen than you'll ever be like me. He wanted to tell the boy all of this, but he couldn't get any more words out. After all these years, it was still difficult. The scars had healed, but he still felt the thread catching at his words as they left his lips.

“I won't hurt anyone with it, I promise!”

You wouldn't mean to, child. You wouldn't _mean_ to.

 

–

 

There were shadows of figures running into the trees, silhouetted against the dwindling twilight. Whatever had happened, it was too late for Arvedui to do a damned thing about it. Smoke still rose from the smoldering remains of the barns, the houses, the granaries. The corpses of sheep littered the field next to his father's house.

He stumbled in the dim light as the stars appeared, one by one, the sky deepening from the dark blue to inky black. The moon would not rise for another hour or two this time of year. Arvedui bent down and picked up a scrap of wood from the remains of the neighbor's barn and thrust it into the red embers until it caught the flame again, and lifted it like a torch.

His world lay in ruins about him. His parents' home was empty, although it had clearly been ransacked. The cabinet doors lay open and the contents had been strewn across the floor, anything useful taken and the rest left. He went to his brother's house and found the same.

Where was everybody? He prayed that the fleeing shadows were his family, and not whoever had attacked them. Was his brother among them? Had his brother's wife escaped as well? His niece? The baby? What of his sisters, his older brother?

Arvedui rushed from one ruined farmstead to another. The prints of heavily booted feet had churned up the soil. Nobody was shod like that here. Nobody. Soldiers, then, of some sort. Why would they come here? What could they possibly want? They had no weapons, no wealth.

Many had fled, some had fought back. He recognized faces, despite the many wounds they bore. _Why would they come here?_

Arvedui reached his grandparents' home. The house was untouched. His grandfather was not.

The soldiers wore heavy armor, their scorched helmets obscuring their faces. The image of a sword was emblazoned on the breastplate, surrounded by curved lines like some sort of perverse flower. They lay strewn like toys in a circle, the ground scorched black in a starburst around him. His grandfather, in the center of another perverse flower, was dead.

Just like those who'd dared attack the old _Saarebas_. It was the last mistake they'd ever made.

Arvedui stumbled to his knees in the earth beside his fallen kin.

_It's no good for this place._

He'd never learned to make the fire. His grandfather had never taught him the secret. He felt the flames burning inside him now, he did not need a lesson. They licked at his guts and at his heart.

The light of dawn arrived over the eastern mountains just as he'd gathered the last of his fallen neighbors and placed them together with his grandfather in the center of the old sheep field outside of his mother and father's home. He set the fire inside free, leaving nothing to take the interest of passing spirits.

The soldiers, he left where he'd found them, turning his back upon them as he ascended once again. The road beyond the mountain led from someplace he'd never been, and led to some place he would now go, wherever that was.

 


	2. Push the Sky Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long road ends in a new beginning.

It rained. It rained again. It rained a little more. The road beneath his feet was more mud than road at this point, the ruts of passing cartwheels turning into small rivers as he walked east along the road. He'd caught up to, then passed by, the caravan of dwarven merchants he'd purchased a woodcutter's axe from a week and a half and a lifetime ago. One of them hailed him cheerfully, but he could not bring himself to answer the dwarf's greeting. He kept his head down, leaning upon the staff he'd taken from his grandmother's empty home, where it had leaned next to the door whenever she was not using it. It wasn't a walking stick, but it served well enough as one.

Arvedui ran a finger over the the axe blade where it was tucked into his belt, flinching when the keen dwarven-forged edge drew blood. Many swore that the tools made in Orzammar by true smith caste dwarves were superior to those made by their surface kin, including his brother (who spent far too much time chatting and not enough working out a good trade), but Arvedui had never been able to tell the difference. Things like wood and metal and stone were Arvegil's specialty. Arvedui knew his herbs, his healing spells, and a few other things, like how to make a pot boil instantly or scrub a table clean with a wave of his hand, that his mother, at least, had found both useful and amusing. His grandmother had taught him.

He also knew how to set things on fire now. Nobody had taught him that. He tried to remember his grandfather's face as it looked when he was a child. He could almost see in his mind's eye the old man sat on his chair in front of the hearth, eyes closed and a light smile on his face while Grandmother sang to herself softly, working on her herbal remedies at the kitchen table while the moths who came in through the window with the evening's cool breeze flirted dangerously with the firelight.

Anything was better than the rictus of pain and rage that had remained on Grandfather's lifeless face in the middle of that circle of soldiers, scattered in a ring where they fell in their strange armor.

Thunder ripped the sky overhead and Arvedui pushed forward against the wind, the mud sucking at his boots as though the earth wanted to swallow him. He was sorely tempted to lay down and let it. Did this road go on forever? He'd passed out of the mountains several days ago and the dense forest on either side of the road had given way to hills and open pasture. In the distance he sometimes spied a farmhouse or cattle, but he did not know who they belonged to.

He'd passed human travellers on the roads, and a few more dwarves. He'd acknowledged none of them, but had diverted to the side of the road to allow them to pass. Some of them seemed surprised, even alarmed to see him, but he kept his eyes averted and kept going.

Two days past, he'd spied a campfire in the distance that was surrounded by the unmistakable figures of halla and aravels, the marks of a band of Dalish elves. He'd paused, then, and thought about approaching them, but in the end, he'd stayed on the road. They might easily have been the same clan that passed every few years, and traded with the Vashoth in the valley, but he did not know. He remembered his mother telling him that not all Dalish out in the wide world were so friendly, and he had no stomach for a confrontation.

Arvedui filled a waterskin whenever the road neared a creek or stream, although the water was more turbid than what was up in the mountains and he was certain it would do him no favors. He did not sleep on the road, but generally several yards off to one side or another, wherever he could find some spot that seemed sheltered enough. He had not heard wolves in days, at least.The cheese, nuts and strips of dried beef he'd thrown in his pack from his grandmother's cupboards were running short, but he had little appetite anyhow.

The farmland grew more crowded, with fences in between fields and around paddocks, sometimes thick, deliberately planted hedgerows clearly meant to keep neighbors in their place. His own home had never had anything of the sort which he saw on these orderly, well-delineated and strongly-fenced farms. There had been cattle and sheep in the valley who did not look much different from the beasts in these fields, but back home, they had belonged to this family or that, but nobody had ever cared which field they grazed in from one day to the next, so long as there was enough for all. The sheep were gathered into flocks of forty or fifty and sent with groups of the older children up into the high pastures in the summertime, the girls taking theirs to the southern slopes, and the boys sent to the north. Cattle, who were less sure-footed, were kept in the lower pastures around the river. There were fences around the wheatfields and vegetable gardens to keep the animals from trampling or eating them, but nobody gave much thought to it otherwise.

There were more people now, too. Some stopped in their tracks and looked at him as though shocked, or stood in their fields and peered at him as though expecting him to do something terrifying. A few hurried on their way more swiftly, clearly intent on putting distance between themselves and him. Perhaps they'd never seen Vashoth before. Where was he going? Forward. One foot, another foot. He always smelled smoke, whether he was awake or asleep, it seemed. Everything was burning, somehow. _He_ was burning.

 

–

 

He'd lost all sense of the passage of time. How many days had it been since he'd left the valley? He wasn't sure it mattered. Harvest was not far away, he felt, but there would be no one to gather up sheaves of wheat this year.

 

–

 

The tavern was unlike anything he'd seen in his life. It was packed with an assortment of people that assaulted every sense he possessed. The _smell_ alone... Arvedui crouched in a chair unsuited to his stature at a small table in a corner with a mug of some kind of ale. One of his neighbors had made something similar whenever they had an overabundance of wheat, but where that had been relatively sweet to the taste, this stuff coated the back of Arvedui's throat with a bitterness to rival the most astringent of his herbs.

He'd sold his brother's axe earlier in the day to a blacksmith in the middle of the hamlet whose tavern he was now sitting in. The portly, balding human had been startled by his appearance, but after a moment's hesitation, had been willing to speak to him. Arvedui found the man's accent difficult to understand (and had to repeat himself several times to be understood), but it was obvious the blacksmith was impressed with the skilled dwarven craftwork of the item. Arvedui couldn't help but feel he'd been cheated with what he'd been paid for it, though. He was unaccustomed to handling currency and did not quite know how the small, round silver coins he'd tucked in one of his herb pouches and hung around his neck translated to cheese or hides and had not complained, however. Mathematics had never been his strong suit. He knew enough to double or half a formula for his tinctures, but otherwise he'd always asked his older sister to do sums for him.

The general din of drunken conversation and off-key singing dropped in volume as the door to the tavern swung open and a large group of mercenaries piled in. Arvedui heard and felt the stamping of heavy feet across the filthy wooden floor, but did not care to look up; he was in no mood to speak to any of these strangers. He heard the new group shouting jovially at the crowd, shoving its way across the room to the barkeep to put in their order. Someone cracked a joke that he didn't understand but thought it was _probably_ rude. He closed his eyes tightly and breathed in deeply, trying not to smell the pipe smoke and sweat and vomit that pervaded the tavern atmosphere. He'd take the honest stench of cow dung over this any day. He caught snatches of conversation despite his efforts at not hearing anything.

“ _Did you see how they ran Hissra? We had em bolting like frightened sheep! One crack from Taarlok's staff and they were shitting themselves!”_

Soldiers, perhaps. He fervently hoped they did not have engravings of swords on their breastplates, but something told him they would not, even if he could not bring himself to open his eyes.

“ _Easiest coin we've gotten yet, boss... didn't even have to spill blood to get 'em routed. I wish every job could be like this!”_

Mercenaries, then. He'd passed a few on the road. One group had shouted at him along the way - _“Join us, big man! We'll pay you good, yea?_ ”- but he'd kept moving.

_“Psst-- Shok. Look."_

Arvedui opened his eyes and stared into the dregs of his mug. He lifted it and tipped what was left down his throat and contemplated buying another, despite the unappealing flavor. _Save your money_ , he thought to himself. He didn't know how he'd get any more, and everything seemed to require it down here. Food, chiefly, which he had run out of. A bed for the night, if he gave into the temptation. There were rooms above the tavern, although given what the ground floor looked like, he wasn't sure if he wouldn't be better out in a ditch in a farmer's field somewhere. They all seemed to have dogs, though. Big ones, and none too friendly. The sort who would stare you down as you walked past with a stiff tail raised in warning, but would make no sound unless you began to approach the fence surrounding the property they were set to guard. He might just risk it, anyway. At least the torrential rains that seemed to appear every few hours had finally abated in recent days.

A mass moved in front of him, casting a shadow over him as it blocked the orange glow of the dingy lantern hanging from the rafters. Arvedui sat up and raised his gaze from its intense study of the table; he was greeted with the sight of the last thing he'd ever expected to see in this largely human settlement.

“The name's Shokrakar. You looking for work, son?”

She was Vashoth, like him. Older, perhaps his parents' age, and very road-worn. Or Qunari like his grandfather, perhaps. He wasn't sure how one told the difference outside of the valley, although his intuition told him she was not Qunari. Not precisely, anyway. Much of her face was covered in deep scars and her right eye was clouded over like a pebble of milky quartz. She was missing half of a horn as well, which ended abruptly in a jagged break. He cringed in sympathy for the pain she must have felt when it happened.

The woman tilted one hip and placed a hand on the other, apparently laughing at his expression. “Am I truly such an unbearable sight, boy? I won't bite you.” Her eyes traveled over him shrewdly, and lingered for a moment on his grandmother's staff leaning in the corner behind him. She leaned in conspiratorially, her voice lowered to barely more than whisper. “I find myself in need of another good mage. You're not scared of a fight, are you? Dangerous to be a mage on his own out here, you know, with the war. We can back _you_ up, too.”

Arvedui blinked up at her, her words slowly seeping through the haze of his exhaustion and grief. The war, she said. He'd overheard a bit more on the road. Mages. Something called Templars. He thought of the ring of blasted soldiers surrounding his grandfather and had some inkling, these days, of just what had wrought the sudden misfortune of his people. _We can back_ you _up, too._

Another Vashoth (or Qunari, or whatever) arrived at this Shokrakar's side and peered down at him as well. A man, this one, older than Shokrakar by perhaps ten years or so. Not as old as his grandparents, but one who had seen a good deal of life as well. His horns quite clearly had been deliberately cut off. Arvedui squinted through the dim light at him, his grandfather's face rising unbidden in his mind, almost superimposing itself over this stranger's.

_Saarebas._

“Just escaped, then?” Shokrakar asked.

Arvedui shook his head, not sure what he was denying, exactly, just knowing that whatever she was thinking was probably quite inaccurate. He hadn't realized he'd spoken the word aloud, but apparently he had.

“Nah, boss, he's not all that young. Had to have had his magic for a decade, at least. Probably more. Still got his horns.”

Arvedui felt himself redden in some kind of inexplicable sense of embarrassment and looked away.

“What d'you think, Taarlok? Doesn't smell that drunk yet. Blow to the head?”

Arvedui felt the prickle of magic nudging at him. He hadn't called upon it himself, so it must be from one of these strangers looking at him as though he were some kind of curiosity.

“Not as I can tell. You alright, boy?”

Arvedui coughed, clearing his throat. They clearly had no intention of leaving him alone until he spoke to them. “I'm fine, just.... tired.”

Shokrakar choked back a laugh. “That's a funny accent, where you from? Not Par Vollen or Seheron.”

Arvedui shrugged and gestured vaguely. “West...”

Shokrakar's mirth evaporated and she exchanged a silent glance with her companion. The other members of her mercenary band were beginning to take an interest in Arvedui's corner; he could see some of them craning their necks to catch sight of him around their leader.

“You have a name? I gave you mine.”

He hesitated a moment, glancing across the collection of faces now turned in his direction. He shouldn't trust them. He shouldn't trust anyone, ever again. His family was gone, if not dead. His grandfather was most certainly dead. The world outside of his valley had gotten in, and it had destroyed everything.

The old Saarebas tilted his head slightly and he felt the brush of the Fade's energy again, the shape of the magic a familiar thing, no different than what he'd done himself when trying to figure out what ailed a beast or a child too young to speak for itself. For the first time in his life, he found himself wondering why another person could possibly even care, and it was an uncomfortable feeling for him. He tried to push it aside, for the moment at least. “Arvedui.”

Shokrakar shifted her weight to the other hip, crossing her arms loosely over her chest. “Well, he ain't Tal-Vashoth, whatever he is. Bit soft in the head, maybe.”

 _Tal-Vashoth_. He recognized half of it, anyway. “Vashoth, yes. Like you...?” He was vaguely offended at the other comment, but ignored it.

Shokrakar laughed, a great bubbling sound that shook her whole body. “No, son, not like me. Hoo boy, where the hell did they dig you up from?” She turned and shouted over her right shoulder at one of her company behind her. “Oy, Ashaad! Either one of you! Get another ale for our new friend!” The woman leaned over and grabbed a chair from the next table over, gently decanting the insensate drunk occupying it onto the wooden floor and seating herself across from him. Taarlok took up residence beside her.

“Well, then, what's your story? This, I have _got_ to hear...”

 

 


	3. Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of a New Day)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Meanwhile back in the year One (when you belonged to no-one), you didn't stand a chance, son, if your pants were undone..._

“What the _hell_ were you doing back there!?”

“I didn't want to hurt them--”

“ _Hurt_ them! They were trying to _kill_ us! You told me you weren't afraid of a fight. Agh! I'm going to the tavern. Taarlok, see if you can teach this _child_ something useful.”

Arvedui stared in disbelief at Shokrakar's retreating back. “I told you I don't know anything about fighting! You said I could join on as a healer, what do you want from me!?”

Taarlok's hand squeezed his shoulder, and tugged at him, pulling him in the opposite direction from their exasperated boss. The rest of the company followed Shokrakar, some shooting him equally annoyed glances, although Kaariss cocked a crooked smile at him over his shoulder in a sympathetic gesture.

Taarlok let go of him and began walking calmly back down the road. “C'mon, there was a small field half a mile back. The trees will shield us from nosy onlookers.”

“I told her-”

“I know what you told her. I also know what she told you, but you've got a lot to learn about Shokrakar. Firstly, what she says today doesn't always apply to tomorrow. You do what the job requires. Everything else is... negotiable.”

Arvedui shook his head in disbelief one more time. They'd taken on a dozen jobs since Arvedui joined up. Until now, they had been simple enough, basic escort work for a couple of merchant companies worried about bandits taking their caravans. The sight of a dozen horned, seven-foot tall mercenaries and a bevy of hired swords was enough to discourage all but the most heavily armed (or foolhardy) thieves. The rest could generally be moved off with a few well-aimed blows and a bit of fireworks from Arvedui and Taarlok's staffs to convince them that waiting for easier quarry was a good idea.

This last job, however, had been different. A nobleman with a massive country estate had hired the Valo-Kas to evict a band of highwaymen that had holed themselves up in a labyrinth of limestone caves on the edge of his property. They hadn't attacked the noble himself, but his neighbors were beginning to complain of regular raids on their tenants and upon the roads nearby. They hadn't been scared off, either, but fought back viciously. The Valo-Kas lost two of their temporary hired swords and Ashaad Two had taken a bad blow to the head. Arvedui had been able to heal Ashaad, but he knew that Shokrakar blamed him for it. He'd not used the full extent of his power against their enemy, he'd hesitated, and it had cost them.

He knew he could have burnt the bandits to ash, as he'd done the bodies of his grandfather and fallen neighbors, but his stomach churned at the thought of using such destructive magic against the living. If only Shokrakar had listened to him earlier, and taken his suggestion of finding another entrance into the caverns instead of rushing in the front door shouting. The limestone caves were not terribly unlike some back home, and he knew the general shape of them. Often there were side passages, or even openings above that can be entered using a sturdy rope. Back home, they had stored apples they picked each fall in them, the cool, dry air keeping everything fresh for a long time.

If the Valo-Kas had managed to get in _behind_ the bandits... Or they could have set fires at all but the front opening and fed the flames with herbs that irritated the throat, and smoked them out, then collapsed the cavern so they couldn't return.... well, it didn't matter now. That wasn't how Shokrakar did things, or so she'd said. _“I'm not going to skulk around like a coward. We meet our enemies head on.”_

Arvedui walked behind Taarlok, feeling a weight settle in his chest. He'd taken Shokrakar's offer of a place in her company because he'd seen no other good options at the time, and still hadn't found a better alternative. It wasn't that he disliked her, or the rest of them, indeed he'd grown fond of them over the last couple of months. But they weren't his family. This wasn't his home. He could leave, of course. He'd made no promises and they did not demand that kind of permanent loyalty. Everyone was free to leave when they chose. But he had nowhere to go.

And, now, Shokrakar was angry with him.

 

–

 

Arvedui pulled the Fade around him, and focused the magic through the his hands, and finally through the staff. The tree stump turned a solid white as moisture in the air condensed and froze upon it.

“Better. Do it well enough and a heavy blow from one of the warriors can shatter an enemy like glass.”

Arvedui swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat at the thought. “There are other ways to deal with an opponent, you could-”

“-freeze the ground under their feet so they'd fall on their asses, yes. And there are situations where that is enough. There are also situations where it is not.”

Arvedui threw his staff to the ground and turned his back on Taarlok. The old Saarebas had been patient with him, far more so than Shokrakar, but Arvedui was growing tired and angry. He hated what he was being taught. His grandmother had spent several years instructing him in the ways of preserving life. He'd healed his neighbors when they took ill, he'd tended to lame animals, he'd delivered children and lambs alike. He'd always hated the sight of anything in pain, of anyone suffering. _It's no good for this place_ , his grandfather had told him. And now they wanted him to...

“You're too soft for this work, boy. But you'd better toughen up soon, or Shokrakar will run out of patience. We all appreciate you patching us up after, I've certainly not got your skill for closing wounds, but we can't be short one man during a fight.”

Arvedui bent down and retrieved his staff, his back still turned on his tutor. He walked over to the thawing stump and pushed his toe at the moldering roots. “I didn't want to hurt someone I didn't _have_ to. I thought Ashaad would move out of the way.” Arvedui placed his hand on the flat surface of the stump, the chill almost gone. He turned and sat down on it, laying his staff across his thighs, and watched a small beetle as it crawled over the moss between his feet.

Taarlok sat on the ground beside him, leaning against Arvedui slightly. “Ashaad Two thought you would stop the blow. You were standing only a few feet behind the bandit, it was a reasonable assumption. It's what your predecessor would have done. Adaar had good instincts for combat. He didn't show off, but he knew where to press his advantage.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got in between a dozen templars and an apostate they wanted, about a week before we ran into you. Some little slip of an elf, probably had never been out of those towers they keep their mages in before it all went to hell. The war put them all out, whether they wanted it or not in some cases. Adaar never did like the sort of cowards who would gang up twelve to one in a fight.”

“'Adaar.' ...I never know what your names mean. I think some of them might have been in that book my grandmother had. She taught me to read, but...” Arvedui shrugged. He wanted to change the subject. He wanted to stop thinking about fighting, about death. About templars and mages and idiotic civil wars that convinced people that anything was justified, even attacking unguarded farmers just so you could steal their food and livestock. He pulled his knees up and hunched in on himself, wrapping his arms around his knees and resting his forehead on them. He wanted to go home. He wanted to seek out his friends, press up against them and let their warmth remind him that he was not alone. But they were gone, some of them dead for sure, the rest...

“Hmm... ' _weapon_ ' essentially. Not terribly far in spirit from 'Saarebas', which they used to call me back in Par Vollen, although you already seem to know something about that. 'Dangerous Thing.' Ha! That's Qunari humor for you. But Adaar was suited to his name. He wasn't particularly violent, mind you, but he was keen and swift, and knew where to place himself in a fight. You would do well to learn the same. Destruction for its own sake is always a bad path for a mage, too easy to lose yourself and become an item of interest for unsavory spirits, but you have power, boy, and you need to learn to use it.”

Arvedui sighed, pressing his forehead harder against his knees, as an ache was beginning to grow behind his eyes. Taarlok shifted beside him, his shoulder pressing into Arvedui's side. Part of Arvedui wanted to lean into him, like he would have done back home, but the last time he'd tried that sort of thing with one of the company, Sataa had given him a hard jab in the ribs with a finger and told him to clear off.

“Are you always this dramatic? Shokrakar's annoyed but she'll forget it by tomorrow. Hell, as soon as she gets enough ale in her, she'll forget all about it tonight. Just don't make a habit of it.”

Arvedui shrugged where he sat. He tried to think of a time in his life where he'd felt as deeply unhappy, but could not come up with anything. He'd been in shock, more or less, in those first days after he left the valley, and only now was it sinking in what he'd lost. The people he'd met since were just not the same. Many were selfish, many were cruel. Many just simply didn't care. He'd met a few who were decent enough, perhaps, but even those with kind hearts were suspicious of others. There was no trust to be found, it seemed, out in the world. How many times had he herded his father's sheep into the paddock and shut them in, or left them under the watch of a neighbor, so he could spend hours wandering the hills and hollows looking for one lamb that had wandered off? Who would come and find _him_?

“You never did say why you left home, exactly. If you hate it so much out here, why not go back? You've made a little money, you could head home whenever you want. It's not like you signed a contract.'

Arvedui sat up slightly, squinting into the dim light now that the sun had dipped below the horizon. “I can't go back, they're all gone.”

“Plague?”

“Templars.”

“Ah. That's... tough. Forget I asked. Well... why don't we head back into town? Join the others, have a drink.”

Arvedui thought about the smoke and smell and noise of the tavern. “You can if you want.”

“Not much for the noise, are you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, we can grab a couple pints and head up to my room, then, if you'd prefer.”

Arvedui turned to look at Taarlok's profile in the twilight, wondering what he was really offering. He'd learned about more than just a few extra spells over the last few weeks. The Valo-Kas were... colorful sorts.

Taarlok suddenly laughed, and slapped his shoulder. “I'm not trying to seduce you. Although if you'd like some company...” Taarlok hesitated at Arvedui's expression. “You don't have to do anything you don't want to, I'm just offering. You just seem a bit lonely, is all.” Taarlok stood and extended a hand, and pulled Arvedui to his feet, then threw his arm over Arvedui's shoulder. “C'mon, I've got a deck of cards in my pack somewhere. I'll show you how to play Wicked Grace.”

Arvedui leaned into his friend's warmth as they made their way back to the tavern.

 

–

 

The next few months passed with far less friction. Arvedui still hated the way he was now expected to use his magic, but he wasn't going to be at fault for losing any of the company or more of its hirelings. He still got on Shokrakar's nerves on a regular basis, as he wheedled at her, suggested one alternative strategy or another, all designed to reduce the amount of actual conflict needed to finish a job. He knew she thought he was a bit of a coward, but he didn't particularly care.

After one disastrous encounter that ended in a full retreat for the Valo-Kas and heavy casualties among their hired swordsmen, however, she finally started to listen. The rest of the company seemed to appreciate the reduction in their bruises, anyway.

 

–

 

It was barely past dawn when the sound of a spoon striking the bottom of a frying pan marched up and down the hallway of the inn where they'd taken up residence for the week. Shouted invective and various groans emanated from the doors as Shokrakar opened them up, one by one, sticking her head in to rouse her sleeping company.

Arvedui groaned and rolled over, swearing at the rude awakening. Taarlok shoved back at him, unhappy not only at the noise, but at Arvedui suddenly nearly crushing him. There hadn't been enough rooms, and they'd had to double up, and as per their habit at this point, Arvedui bunked with the other mage in the company. Not that he minded Taarlok rubbing his back for him and comforting him after yet another jaunt through the Nightmare district of the Fade, as seemed his habit these days - he couldn't seem to get through two nights out of three without waking up in a cold sweat or worse. Otherwise, he'd more or less settled into his life with the Valo-Kas. He'd become "Adaar Two" and eventually just "Adaar" (as the former bearer of the name was no more than a memory now) and he felt his old name and old life slipping further away. Sometimes he wondered at himself, but he had little time for "navel-gazing" (as Shokrakar put it) these days. They were just too damned busy. The money was coming in faster than he could spend it, although the rest of the company had no such struggles.

When he and Taarlok didn't move fast enough, Shokrakar reappeared around the door frame and banged her frying pan a few more times for emphasis.

The hallway became crowded as everyone slumped out of their rooms, still rubbing grit from their eyes and pulling on tunics and trousers and various other garments (although Kaariss seemed to have no qualms about leaning against his doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a disgruntled expression, completely naked).

“Okay kids, gather 'round Mother. We've got a big one coming up and we've got to leave today if we're gonna make it on time. This is going to put the name Valo-Kas in the ears of the Grand and Mighty, and we're not gonna fuck this one up. I want all of you on your best behavior, too, we gotta act like we're not a bunch of heathens.”

“But we _are_ a bunch of heathens, boss. ” Ashaad lit his pipe and pulled on it before handing his flint to Ashaad Two to do the same.

“Then you'd damned well better learn to fake some high society manners, we've got a Chantry job. Big thing up on a bloody mountain somewhere in a temple. Apparently they're finally fed up enough with this war of theirs to do something about it and they want security. They want _us_. We're going to some dump called Haven in the Frostbacks, so grab your shit. We're hitting the road.”

Sata-Kas groaned where she stood and rolled her eyes. “What about breakfast? You can't expect us to march on an empty stomach.”

“We'll eat on the road. I've got some horses lined up for us, so I hope you all remember how to ride. If you fall in a ditch, we're leaving you behind.”

The company all retreated back to their rooms, the slamming doors providing commentary on their general opinion of the Shokrakar's announcement. Arvedui grabbed his pack and pulled some fresh socks out, then reached for his boots. He glanced at Taarlok doing the same. “Should I mention that I've never ridden a horse in my life?”

 

–

 

There was shouting behind the heavy wooden doors where Arvedui and Hissra stood guard. He could hear a woman's muffled voice, then a man's reply.

“ _Why are you doing this, you of all people?”_

“ _Keep the sacrifice still.”_

Arvedui turned and banged on the door, but it wouldn't open. He looked at Hissra and they both threw their weight against it together.

“ _Someone, help me!”_

Finally, the door gave way. Arvedui stepped through as he heard Hissra's running footsteps receding down the hallway, presumably to alert the rest of the company of trouble.

“What's going on here?”

The creature that stood before him, holding the Divine captive in the air, was like nothing Arvedui had ever seen in the waking world or in the Fade. It was at least ten feet tall, with an arm and a hand like some sort of twisted vine. It held a black orb that emanated a green glow.

The Divine looked at Arvedui, her eyes both fearful and defiant, and swung an arm out while her captor was distracted. The strange object flew out of the creature's hand and bounced across the floor. Arvedui reached down and caught it. Pain like he had never experienced shot through his hand and up his arm.

 


	4. Interludes

What was happening?

A dark-haired woman stood over him. Human. She had a long, thin face and high cheekbones. A scar cut across one cheek, almost down to her chin.

Arvedui shut his eyes, trying to force his mind to work, to _remember_ , while the woman shouted accusations at him.

 

–

 

Arvedui remembered standing silently outside the door while a tempest of sorts raged inside. Some might have found it exciting, historic even, but for Arvedui, the Conclave had been incredibly dull, and the hours spent standing in one place were making his feet and his back ache. It was dragging on for days as mages, templars and various interested parties shouted at one another while a small elderly woman wearing a very large hat tried to get them to see reason.

He'd had disagreements with neighbors back home, some quite serious, and sometimes they required a third party to resolve, the elders of the valley called upon to make a decision that they would all agree to live with, because you didn't let things like this fester until it destroyed both sides. He had never in his life seen anything go on like this.

But then, he had never seen a war before, either. He remembered the stories his grandfather had told him and his siblings of life in Par Vollen and Seheron, but he thought now, perhaps, the version he'd gotten had been (deliberately) incomplete. Was this what it was always like? Stubborn heads refusing to back down, no matter the dire cost? It was all pride, he thought. They were more interested in being “right” and holding fast to the idea that they were blameless, than in finding a solution and moving on.

Most of the situation was, he would have admitted, beyond Arvedui's experience – he was a mage, certainly, but he had never lived in a Chantry circle. The only templars he'd ever known were those that had destroyed his home. His initial instinct had been to side with the mages, but the constant shouting about blood magic and just who was ultimately responsible for its use seeped through the doors, and the endless warnings his grandparents had given him as a boy came back to him. There were some fires you just didn't play with unless you wanted to get burned, badly.

 _They're like children._ That's what he had ultimately thought, while standing guard over their “Conclave” and listening to them. Children fighting with each other over “who started it” and who was “more” at fault when it was obvious that as the war had dragged on for months, regardless of who started it, both sides had committed numerous atrocities, all the while concocting ever-flimsier justifications for it. Anything goes when you've been “wronged” apparently, at least here. Was it truly more important to them how to apportion blame, than to stop the killing and suffering?

 

–

 

The beleaguered leader of the Chantry who had spent so many days fruitlessly trying to broker peace with the irrational and the spiteful was, apparently, dead. This woman standing over him called him a murderer. _She thinks I killed the Divine._

He should have told his brother to just wait, and forgotten about the axe. Maybe he could have stopped the templars. More likely, they'd have killed him along with his grandfather. Either way, none of this would have happened. He's not so sure he wouldn't prefer to have shared his grandfather's fate to all that has happened since he left home.

Arvedui forced his eyes open and looked into hers. Her face contorted with a nearly incandescent rage, and if she had any magical talent, Arvedui would probably be on fire. Her eyes, however, revealed only terror. She's deathly afraid, he thinks. It's easier for her to be angry, and so she rages at him, accuses him. It's a distraction, at best, but he knows better than to give voice to such thoughts.

He said again and again, he doesn't know what happened, but it's clear he's still expected to do something. The pain in his left hand flared, suddenly, and reminded him that, whatever his sudden bout of amnesia, _something_ happened, and he has been transformed. She pulled him outside and unbound his hands to lead him under a sky ripped open. He could run, but he feels a strange desire to follow his accuser, rushing ahead shouting at him and at everyone they pass, still masking her panic as righteous anger. Arvedui wanted to reach out, to comfort her somehow, and perhaps himself as well, but it seemed impossible. Everything was chaos. _Why can't I just remember what happened?_

Demons appeared and he defended himself with some dead mage's staff, picked up where it had fallen in the snow. Where had his grandmother's staff gone? He panicked momentarily at the thought, bereft of his last connection to everything he'd known for most of his life. He tried to clamp down on the anxiety and focus himself. They were both in danger, and as formidable a fighter as she clearly was, the demons pouring out of the sky were more than a match for one solitary warrior.

 

–

 

Solas, a peculiar elven mage who spoke in measured tones and clearly knew more than he was letting on. Varric Tethras, who wielded a crossbow with its own name and personality and used humor to hide his fear. Cassandra Pentaghast, who dragged him up a mountain and shouted to hide hers. And some hooded woman named Leliana who argued with an irate Chantry hat while the world was crumbling around them. Who were these people?

The temple where he had stood guard for days with the Valo-Kas was unrecognizable. The twisted, magic-blasted bodies of the dead lay scattered over the ground, their faces frozen in hellish torment.

None he could see had horns. Where was Shokrakar? What happened to Hissra after he'd bolted down the hallway to seek aid? He hoped Taarlok managed to get away. The old Saarebas had always seemed indestructible. Arvedui couldn't imagine his friend dying, it was impossible. He'd always laughed at danger and remained a constant, solid reassurance at Arvedui's back.

 

–

 

The hole in the sky was closed, although he'd been assured it was only a temporary fix. They called him the "Herald of Andraste" now. He'd seen statues of a woman at the temple, _this_ woman, apparently. How was he the Herald of a woman he knew almost nothing about? They said this woman saved him and gave him his mark, that through her, their Maker sent him to save them. But what had he ever saved? Arvedui wondered if any of his family had survived, any of his neighbors. Was the valley still burned and empty? Were the scattered flocks now wandering the hills alone, only to fill the bellies of wolves?

Arvedui wandered in the trampled snow and mud outside of the walls of Haven and watched the soldiers sparring with a former templar named Cullen. He'd been introduced to the man earlier, but found it difficult to speak to him. The man conversed with him in a friendly enough manner, but Arvedui could only think of the soldiers with image of a sword on their breastplates and the violence that had consumed his home. He had forced a smile, knowing he'd be expected to work with this man, perhaps for a long time to come.

He let his gaze pass over Cullen to watch Cassandra taking out her frustration on a hapless training dummy. Her movements were as deliberate, fluid and practiced as her speech was not. He'd spoken to her at length earlier in the day, and she'd tripped over her words. He'd tried to joke with her a little, and had only succeeded in mildly offending her. She was cagey and defensive, yet also surprisingly candid in some ways. He'd developed certain expectations of people since leaving home, chiefly among them an inability to ever admit an error. Cassandra Pentaghast had apologized to him.

The dwarf, Varric Tethras, had called her The Seeker. 

 

–

 

Eventually, they drag him out to some region called the Hinterlands. He's constantly rushed along from one disaster to another, closing rifts, fighting bandits, and desperately trying to prevent refugees from being slaughtered in the ongoing skirmishes between templars and mages who won't stand down or see reason. The days all blur together and he loses track of time. He finds himself staring dumbly up at the moon and the stars on clear nights, trying to remember what they signify. He used to know the days and months just by the shape of the night skies, when it was time to sow the wheat, when it was time to move his father's flock to the next pasture. The rhythm of his life had failed, somehow.

Eventually, they come back to Haven with a horsemaster, a Chantry priestess, and a peculiar warrior called Blackwall who was something called a Grey Warden. He watches Cassandra from a safe distance during quiet moments, forever unsure of whether his presence is welcome or not. That strange impulse to comfort her, to fold himself around her fear and doubt, has never quite gone away, but he has a suspicion that she would be insulted if she knew, so he keeps such thoughts to himself.

Sometimes he sits on a crate by the forge and listens and learns what a Grey Warden is, how wars are fought and won and lost, how the heart of an army beats, and how a heart weighed down with some hidden, personal sorrow sounds. Blackwall, he thinks, is what Cullen should be more like -less impatient aggression and more awareness of the cost of things - and he wonders why this man was living out in the wild on his own. He says he's a recruiter, but a shack in the middle of nowhere seems a poor base for such a goal and Arvedui doesn't quite believe him. Blackwall's gaze averts and he deflects whenever Arvedui asks too many personal questions, though, and the grief within him is almost a physically tangible thing. Arvedui wants to tend to that hurt, as he always wants to tend to the wounds around him, but Blackwall won't allow him close enough. 

They head out to the aptly named Storm Coast and in the constant chill drizzle and crashing waves, he meets a Qunari who isn't quite Qunari. The Iron Bull presents an image of conspiratorial friendliness, giving just enough details about his life in Seheron and his role in the Ben Hassrath to afford the appearance of forthrightness. His eyes are shuttered, though, one quite literally, and Arvedui wonders just how firmly he believes the lies he tells. The loyalty of his mercenaries tells its own story, however, and Arvedui trusts their trust in him, if nothing else. Arvedui wonders if The Iron Bull is even aware how loved he is, or how much he loves them in return, and worries for this complicated man's fate.

But the Chargers are as colorful a company as the Valo-Kas had been and he wonders again if Taarlok and the rest are out there somewhere, or if they'd been incinerated by the explosion along with the rest of the temple. He'd asked Leliana if she'd heard anything of a Tal-Vashoth mercenary band from the Free Marches. She'd assured him that if she did, he'd be the first to know, but he has not heard anything since.

 

–

 

Orlais was no more appealing to Arvedui than the backwaters of Ferelden had been. In many ways, far less so. The gilded statues and opulent fountains were clearly appealing to many, but they seemed as cosmetic and false as the masks that half of its citizens wore. The excursion had not be completely fruitless; at least they knew where they stood with the remnants of the Chantry, and with the Templars.

“Are you alright?”

He'd resolved himself to keeping his distance from Cassandra, but the rebuke and betrayal of the one called the Lord Seeker Lucius had wounded her, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. She'd reacted to his concern about as he'd expected though.

“I am _fine_.”

 

–

 

It would be months before the nightmares even began to lessen. He saw them again and again in his dreams, a red haze and livid eyes and an army of demons at their heels. Sometimes it was not just those who had gone with him to Redcliffe to meet with the mages, but many others as well – Taarlok, his brother, his grandfather. They appeared before him, begging him to end their suffering and he could not bring himself to raise his staff and could only ever watch as the red lyrium consumed them.

He would awake in a cold sweat, and turn over on the narrow bed in his private cabin, reaching out in the dark for someone, _anyone_. He had been raised up as a figurehead for this Inquisition, a living banner to be carted to and fro, but he had never felt so alone in his life as he did in this adoring crowd. The loneliness settled like a leaden weight in his belly, and it was a struggle for him to hold himself back among those few companions who still spoke to him like a person instead of a walking symbol, but he knew what they were like here and just how welcome affection from a horned, seven-foot tall "Herald of Andaste" would be. 

He distracted himself as best he could, letting his advisers endlessly interrogate him for his opinion on this and that and one disaster, another demand, some triviality he saw no point in but feigned an interest so that Josephine would not get that pinched look she had when she was getting impatient with his impatience. He let Varric tell him stories about Kirkwall and tried to understand how the war he'd been drawn into started, but none of it made any sense. Varric tried to reassure him that nobody really understood it, but somehow that just made it all the more depressing.

A young elven woman (who preferred not to be reminded she was an elf, thankyouverymuch) entered his orbit near Val Royeaux, and finally there was someone who did not bother to lie, did not care what others thought, and let him know when she thought he was being stupid. Sera provided a refreshing counterpoint to another woman who joined in roughly the same location, who could not have been more opposite. Vivienne de Fer was someone to keep an eye on. Two, perhaps. And the Tevinter mage called Dorian who, despite his personable nature, seemed to think the comparative merits of slavery and poverty was a legitimately debatable subject.

There was still a chance to prevent the horrors he'd seen in one possible future, and that alone drove him onward.

 

–

 

He closed the breach. Again. The one who had opened it, however, was apparently displeased with this state of affairs. Corypheus paid the Inquisition a visit, and that was the sudden, violent end of Haven.

Had he ever felt so cold in his life? He could lay down in the snow and die, peacefully. He wanted to, but the remnants of campfires and something almost like voices on the wind drew him eastward through the mountains, until finally he could move no more. He heard them shouting as he collapsed in the snow.

They sang, and he listened, although he still did not understand.

Skyhold, that's what Solas called it. He never really did explain how he knew of it.

Cassandra spent her time alone in a sheltered corner of the place, forever hacking away at another innocent training dummy. She smiled at him from time to time, but he did not know how to soothe the loneliness she carried, any more than he knew what to do for his own. A spirit named Cole asked him why he did not tell her that they were the same. He told the spirit that he was afraid of what she would say. He did not know why he was afraid.

There was too much work to do, anyway.

 

 


End file.
